No less an authority than the TSN panel has predicted that the Edmonton Oilers best player, Taylor Hall, will be sitting at home watching the Olympic games rather than representing Canada in Sochi.

Here’s why they’re wrong.

TSN’s Roster

TSN’s left wing depth chart consists of Chris Kunitz, Rick Nash, converted centre Logan Couture, and Patrick Sharp. With all due respect to those four, there’s simply no way that Hall shouldn’t be part of that group.

The Competition

Chris Kunitz bafflingly gets the top left wing position on the team. The only possible defence of that ranking is that he has familiarity playing with Sidney Crosby, and it’s a terrible defence because presumably it isn’t difficult to look good playing on a line with the best player in the world. Kunitz has spent approximately 75% of his even-strength the last three years centered by either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin; Taylor Hall has done it with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Sam Gagner and Shawn Horcoff, players that aren’t exactly comparable. Despite being in the prime of his career and on a line with two of hockey’s five best players, somehow Kunitz has a worse point-per-game rate over the last three seasons than Hall, who was breaking into the league and playing in a tougher conference to boot. In three previous seasons Kunitz has hovered around a 60-point pace, so this last year was likely a one-off and if his scoring drops back to his established level nobody will be talking about him as an Olympian.

Rick Nash is likely a better choice for the top left wing position than Chris Kunitz. The 29 year-old is a veteran of international play, having represented Canada at two Olympic games, four World Championships and a World Junior tournament. Interestingly, like Kunitz, his points-per-game rate is actually less than Hall’s over the last three seasons, but he is more of a goal-scorer and arguably more of a complete player at this point in time.

Logan Couture, the converted centre, is another player who finds himself falling just short of Hall’s point-per-game pace over the last three seasons. He has an advantage in that he’s perceived as a better positional defender than Hall but a disadvantage in being a lesser skater and having less experience internationally (Couture has represented Canada only at the under-18’s back in 2006-07). Couture is an exceptional player – and a Corsi monster – but he both doesn’t tilt the ice the way Hall does in terms of out-shooting the opposition and he doesn’t come close to having the same level of offensive dynamism that Hall does. On a team loaded to the gills with converted centres, Couture’s positional strengths defensively shouldn’t trump Hall’s superior ability to drive results in his natural position.

Patrick Sharp should, barring a major drop-off, be on this team. A versatile skater who can play any position, he is both a dynamic offensive player and a skilled defensive forward. He’s coming off a tough year – he really struggled on a line with Dave Bolland for half the season, though he was fine with other centres – but he’s been excellent in the past and shouldn’t be a controversial choice.

Taylor Hall

Taylor Hall is coming off a remarkable season, even by Canadian Olympic team standards. No Canadian player in the lower-scoring Western Conference put up more points than Hall; in terms of even-strength scoring per hour only Jonathan Toews (3.19 PTS/60) had a better rate than Hall (3.15 PTS/60) in the West. Hall finished eighth overall in Relative Corsi league-wide last season and was 20th overall the year before that. In his first three seasons in the league, he’s clear of every Canadian left wing other than 41 year-old Ray Whitney in terms of points-per-game, despite the fact that he’s just started his career and has played for a pretty awful team.

Hall is a special player. He’s Canada’s best scoring left wing at the age of 21 despite playing in the West and there’s a pretty decent case that no other Canadian left wing drives out-shooting the way he does when he’s on the ice. He took a leap forward last year and was the best left wing in the NHL, despite Chris Kunitz's nod as first-team All-Star.

Hall will, barring injury, be a fixture on future Canadian Olympic teams but he’s good enough to play for them right now, and if he picks up where he left off the team’s management will have no choice but to include him.

Recently around the Nation Network

Despite the many claims (even by me) that Jokinen and Schiefele will be auditioning for the same job of 2C, we can imagine this team organized in such a way as to reveal a hole at centre. Moving Tangradi outside the top-9, Frolik could take his LW role - if only the team had another centre. Does Eric O'Dell get a look for a soft-minutes assignment there? Is that Nic Petan's job down the line? What does the team do when Grabovski is a free agent again next year?

Click the link above to read more (includingthe lines Mccartney settled on), or check out some of my recent stuff:

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

Overall, Ladd is the more complete player with much more leadership qualities. If there's a fight for the final LW spot, he is way more qualified than one of the most overrated players in the game, Taylor Hall.

Players on teams that have been in the basement of the league for the past 7 years should not be making the Olympics to represent Canada, when there are much better, successful alternatives out there. Hall especially has no success at the international level, being benched, and that is another reason against him being on the team. So no thanks to him being an Olympian.

Olympian pales in comparison to the financial benifits of being a Professional Athlete. Who cares about being a part time Olympian.

Hang onto your full time gig there Taylor. Kids dream of winning the Stanley Cup/playing in the NHL long before adding a gold medal to their safety deposit box. Hockey Canada will need Taylor Hall, long before Hall needs to have that Olympic experience.

"TSN’s left wing depth chart consists of Chris Kunitz, Rick Nash, converted centre Logan Couture, and Patrick Sharp. With all due respect to those four, there’s simply no way that Hall shouldn’t be part of that group."

Well, being invited to the whatever-the-hell-they're-doing-in-Calgary event says he IS part of that group.

Left side defence and offence could both use upgrades beyond Nash and Keith . Hall with progression should be there . Seabrook should make defence . If Hall makes it we could even see Eberle , Schultz , Hopkins and Perron possibly taken into account if Oilers are dominant this early season . Heh, maybe even Gagner . Not sold on left side of TSN squad , looks weak for now . Strong right defence and mediocre right offence .

Andrew Ladd? Never heard of him. Thank goodness for NHL re-alignment, extra games against the lowly jets will pad Hall's stats just like it did for #99. Gretz would have won the Art Ross if they only counted his points against the jets.

Lowly jets? Sure.. and that's why Winnipeg has been within a few spots of making the playoffs within it's first two years back, meanwhile Edmonton was still trying to crawl out of the basement. Doesn't seem to be working, does it.

I just personally thought your singling out one stat and talking matter-of-factly like it proved Hall couldn't hold a candle to the other names was an incredibly weak argument. Why don't you go dig up Jarome Iginla's +/- ON/60 back in 2010.. I seem to recall no regrets with the Canadian team selecting him.

But seriously, Hall's as good as Ladd already and will no doubt be the better player going forward.

There hasn't been a team since the 90's up until 2011.. And since then, the jets have undoubtedly been better than the oilers. But that is not the point here.

Ladd has two Stanley Cup titles.. Hall doesn't even know what the playoffs are. Ladd had 46 points this last year compared to Hall's 50, but his +/- was +10 compared to Hall's +5. Maybe if Hall had shown he could compete at the international level at the WC, he would be more likely to get in. But he didn't.

i dont know?... can Hall handle the pressure and burden of being an olympian when - as some say - he can't handle the burden of being team captain yet? better lobby to send Gagner to the Olympics instead. put up 8 points in a game once and has a cool girlfriend.

Off-topic, and maybe its just me, but the thoughts of having PK Subban on the blueline for Canada makes me sick. Him winning the Norris was a horrible act of East Coast journalists looking at point production and knowing Zero about the game.

The last thing the national team needs is a poor defensive defenseman, that takes one or two bad penalties a game, and runs around out of position to try to lay a highlight reel hit (which 9 times out of 10 does not work). He has a good one-timer...thats it. That and an ego that wouldn't fit through the Russian border. Please leave him at home. If he plays like he did in the playoffs I won't have to worry about it. Letang over PK any day in my mind.

On topic, Lindy Ruff didn't like what he saw from Hall at the Worlds and benched him. JW is throwing out all kinds of NHL numbers, but the game is way different on bigger ice, and after watching Hall play last spring, it was hard to argue with Lindy. Hall will have to have one whale of a first half to make this squad.

Hockey is played on the ice and not a computer, Hall will never get his due simply because he plays in Edmonton. He was the second most effective offensive forward in the West last year. Better then Sedin x2, Kesler and whoever else your stats can bring up. 51 points in what, 45 games?

yet another reason why the MSM is (mostly) a joke. You and Gregor both summed it up nicely. A year ago Kunitz was not even in the conversation, and now because of an extremely small sample size they have him as 1LW. I think you could argue that just about any player will play well with the best player in the game.

The "MSM" has been explicitly clear on this point.

"It's not who we think should be on the team, it's who, based on our insight, management/staff may be leaning towards"

This disclaimer has been made over and over and over and over and over again by every single MSM journalist who is reporting and or commenting on the story. It's baffling that people are still missing it.

Brent Seabrook is a right side defenceman; if Kris Letang isn't on the team there's no way he should be.

I prefer Seabrook to Letang , and he does well on the big ice surface as well . Doesn't hurt he makes Keith better also . I am also surprised pesky Perry not on list . Like our center position , but Hopkins can thread a needle and may push Getzlaf .

Wow, i dont care about left side right side. This is team canada and the best of the best. Same thing goes for offensive specialist and defensive specialists. We have 8 guys that can do both. Look at the locks. They do both.

Subban to big of liability, marc staal not enough offense.

Best all around, bring both offensive and defense as well as physicality and puck moving. and I dont care about side

yet another reason why the MSM is (mostly) a joke. You and Gregor both summed it up nicely. A year ago Kunitz was not even in the conversation, and now because of an extremely small sample size they have him as 1LW. I think you could argue that just about any player will play well with the best player in the game.

You can't really state that TSN is wrong with this list. If you disagree with the choices, then you should be complaining about hockey canada's management, not the panel on TSN.

Their list isn't built around who they would put on the team. TSN isn't choosing any one of these players over Taylor Hall. They said several times that after talking to players, personnel, and management, that they believe this is the list that management is leaning towards at the moment. I beleive they stated this several times during the broadcast, and the article online.

Left side defence and offence could both use upgrades beyond Nash and Keith . Hall with progression should be there . Seabrook should make defence . If Hall makes it we could even see Eberle , Schultz , Hopkins and Perron possibly taken into account if Oilers are dominant this early season . Heh, maybe even Gagner . Not sold on left side of TSN squad , looks weak for now . Strong right defence and mediocre right offence .

Brent Seabrook is a right side defenceman; if Kris Letang isn't on the team there's no way he should be.

In the same way that chemistry between players in juniors rarely translates into chemistry at the NHL level, chemistry at the NHL doesn't seem to contribute much at the Olympics.

Witness Seabrook in 2010, who was half of the NHL's best pairing, but was clearly way over his head at the Olympics even when paired with Keith. As a result, he had the least ice time of any defenceman on TC (and not just a little, IIRC he had less than half the TOI of anyone else).

Which is to say there's no way in heck Kunitz should be on this team.

Especially not because "he has chemistry with Crosby", that's just retarded. A green rubbermaid garbage bin placed at the hashmarks (no doubt provided by CWD) would have great chemistry with Crosby.

Hall deserves a definite look at that spot, but so do a lot of transplanted centremen. I know he's a natural winger, but if that roster position comes down to something like Hall vs Giroux, it could be a tough call.

Letting out a sob of relief DSF took a moment to quietly reflect on his absolute victory!

The last 12 hours of Googling had worked, he finally had definitive proof that Taylor Hall is a Canadian bust! It had taken a lot of work to look past and ignore all the other "stats" his "fans" kept bringing out... Such as points and a full suite of other advanced stats; but he had done it!

Finally he had a stat that proved what he knew deep down in his heart, Taylor Hall just isn't any good.

Hitting refresh 17 more times, he contentedly waits for his new internet worshipers to heap praise and other accolades on his mighty shoulders.

His eyes light up with a mad gleam, "What!?!" he bellows... Someone has dared to look at how his mighty stat factored into the past!? This will not stand!

Writing out his well thought out response he clicks the post button and trundles off to his secret thoughts journal, where he promptly places a single bold line through the name Racki; forever removing him from friend contention... That is if he ever sees the need to leave the mighty bachelor pad he has built that is his mother's basement.

Cracking a new can of Dr.Pepper he savors the sweet aroma and contentedly starts planning out the parade Oilers Nation will throw him once they come to recognize his utter genius in all things Hockey.

Taylor Hall is a thoroughbred, who can dominate all by himself in the NHL.
but, with Team Canada he needs to play more of a team game because the competition is higher. Hall will need to prove he can play a 200ft game this year and make players around him better, if he wants to make Team Canada.

JW, you are wrong about Kunitz. If having him on the team means that Crosby is guaranteed to hit the ground running in Sochi then I want him on the team.

Nash deserves to be on the team because he was great in Vancouver and he is still in the prime of his career.

Sharp is too versatile to ignore, so he would have to have a horrendous October/November to not be on the team.

As far as I'm concerned, Hall takes Coutures spot. Hall is one of the fastest players in the world and speed is may be the most important factor when picking this team due to the larger ice surface. In fact Hall might be a great fit with Crosby because they both love to play a fast-paced north/south game. Not to mention the fact that Hall finished in the top 10 in league scoring last year. If gets off to a good start, they have no choice but to pick Hall.

I have no problems with you or anyone doubting that Hall is a good candidate for the Olympic team.. I personally am unsure he'll make it on to the team (solely based on the fact that Canada has a lot of solid players to choose from). If your argument was that he was too green to the NHL to make the Canadian team, I would have accepted that, however your argument was basically "Taylor Hall has a less awesome +/- than the other guys so he won't make the team, book it".

Provide a paper thin argument, and people will call you on it. Looking at +/- ON/60 is a huge waste of time.